Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Great Slave.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as Members are aware, the business community and newcomer community in Yellowknife are very anxious about expiring work permits. Can the Minister please share what provisions she is seeking from the new federal government on drastically reduced allotment of spaces in the NWT nominee program? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member from Great Slave. I'm assuming Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as a starter I am seeking that our allotment of 300 be restored with greater flexibility. This has been communicated in a letter. And I intend to travel to Ottawa as soon as we're done session so that I can continue that conversation in person. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for that. I'm glad that she is seeing the urgency on this.

Mr. Speaker, can the Minister elaborate if she's working with her Cabinet colleagues to ensure information about critical service extensions, such as driver's license and health care access, is being made accessible to organizations that support newcomers? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Both myself at a political level and also at an official's level, the government is working to ensure that we are unified. In support, sometimes we do receive outreach from newcomers who do require support, and we're always as MLAs happy to provide it. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Great Slave.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the Minister for that. Will she be speaking to her federal counterpart about the need for newcomer services specifically, not just permanent residents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm very happy to share with the House today some greater detail of what I have started the conversation with, with the federal minister. That includes restoring our nominee allocation with greater flexibility. It also includes engaging directly with northern stakeholders. Nothing beats hearing a personal story from a Northerner to help understand our northern and territorial context. It also includes extending the GNWT -- or working with the GNWT to extend work permits to people working in the territory and increase investment in settlement services. And one of the things I hear greatly about is that there are gaps in how we can apply those settlement services in the territory. So that conversation is not only around increasing supports, but also broadening supports. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from Range Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier in the day, my constituents are very frustrated with the high cost of power in the Northwest Territories. We have a limited rate base, and we keep squeezing them, and there's nowhere else to charge. So does the Minister have some concrete policy proposals, infrastructure investments, or other forms of change that we can bring to our power system to give Northerners some relief because they're tired of paying these bills, and it's driving people out of their homes as I said. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of NTPC.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the energy systems of the Northwest Territories are in dire need of significant nation scale investment. We need the federal government to be paying attention to the situation we find ourselves in. Residents across this territory are facing not only the high cost that they currently pay. That is also significantly subsidized by the GNWT just to keep the power bills of where they are.

Mr. Speaker, we are not alone. The Yukon right now is proposing a 34 percent increase to their power bills. Nunavut pays an even larger subsidy than we do on their power bills to keep their bills lower for residents.

That doesn't solve the problem, Mr. Speaker. This is a national scale problem. We're not on the North American energy grid. We're own our own. We have almost 20 some different individual micro grids, Mr. Speaker, and so we need the federal government to look at us, to look at projects like Taltson that will start to link our systems, that will look at some of the micro hydro projects that are being examined by Indigenous governments on their lands and, frankly, to consider whether or not there's some other pilot projects that are happening elsewhere in Canada that need to happen in the North so that they're regulated for the northern climate, northern context, and can be brought online to actually fundamentally change the systems that we're in. That's how we're going to get this problem solved. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, my honourable friend from Yellowknife Centre talked about the challenge to the Taltson project and perhaps the optimism around it that might not be realized, and certainly, these are large scale infrastructures. So she said with projects that will take time and investment to pull off and, of course, federal investment. Hopefully, our northern Prime Minister understands that. Nunavut pays more in subsidies. Will the Minister increase the power rate subsidies to give Northerners a break? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we are still currently in this process of a general rate application that was required by the public utilities board, so at this point we are waiting to see what the public utilities board comes back with.

We are also then very much eagerly anticipating the response of the public utilities board to the 13 different policy proposals that we have put forward as a government to look at ways to change and improve the overall structure and system of the GNWT or of the Northwest Territories power systems, and that includes looking at things like power systems plannings and how people might be able to have net metering changes and communities can enter into independent power producer arrangements. Those are all things that will start to change the way that we are operating. But, again, at the moment I'm waiting on the public utilities board, and I am sure they are diligently doing their work. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister responsible for NTPC. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, always happy to look at other options. There is a wealth of change happening in the energy space. Everything from AI managed battery technology that can look to optimize the battery systems and to the actual management of a diesel -- even a diesel generator, all the way over to micro hydro or micro nuclear which is just really tiny little facilities, not on a scale that we were -- would have before seen that are still only at a piloting stage.

So the short answer is yes, Mr. Speaker, and the longer answer is we need to make sure that whatever which of these solutions we choose is one that's properly geared to the Northwest Territories, to the Arctic, and that's where we need the federal government to be our partners because getting technology brought up to speed for the North doesn't -- isn't always something that's on their radar. It needs to be on their radar too. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister responsible for NTPC. Oral questions. Member from Monfwi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Indigenous elder-led counselling; it's not just a service, it is a lifeline. If we require every mental health worker to have a clinical degree, then we may be regulating some of the elders out of a job. With that in mind, Mr. Speaker, how many elders or Indigenous counsellors are employed as part of the community counselling program? Thank you.

Thank you, Member from Monfwi. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't have that level of detail with me, but I can get back to the Member with those numbers. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's my understanding that some small communities do not have regular in-person access to counsellors who provide mental health supports. What steps is the department taking to address these gaps and ensure equitable access to this free service to all small communities across the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do provide mental health counselling across the Northwest Territories; however, there are some vacancies in some regions and that we continue to struggle with as many of our counsellors within our program, as the Member has said, you know, they are clinical counsellors and they should have -- be able to register, and we encourage them to register as soon as they are hired on under that, which also then, like the Member says, provides a barrier. Some of the people that have been working in our system for years. But we do provide virtual telephone counselling and fly-in services to those communities that do need it, and then when there is something going on in the community, usually the leadership will reach out to the department and we will arrange to have counsellors go into those communities when there are things going on. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.